Art of making germless cornmeal



NITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOSEPH FRANKLIN GENT, OF COLUMBUS, INDIANA.

ART OF MAKING GERMLESS CORNMEAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No.302,199 dated July 15,1884.

- Application filed November 17, 1883. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern: I

Be it known that I, J OSEPH F. GENT, acitizen of the United States,residing at Columbus, in the county of Bartholomew and State of Indiana,have invented certain new and use ful Improvements of the Art of MakingGermless Gornmeal; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full,clear, and exact descriptionof the invention, such as will enable othersskilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

In making germless cornmeal from Indian corn it was customary heretoforeto simply reduce the article known as hominy/ which is made by clippingthe kernels of corn, to separate the hulls and germs, which are thenremoved by screening and winnowing.

In theprocess of making hominy a large percentage of the glutinous orstarchy portion of the corn is lost or wasted.

The object of my invention is to manufacture germless cornmeal in such away that this loss or waste of the starchy portion of the corn may beavoided. To this end I proceed as follows: The corn is first thoroughlycleaned in the dry state. It is then steamed just enough to soften andtoughen the germs and husks, so that they may not grind up in thereduction which follows, while the glutinous or starchy interior remainspractically unaffected by the steam. The corn thus steamed isimmediately coarsely ground or broken, preferably between corrugatedrolls, reducing it to a coarse meal, composed of separated hulls, germs,and granules of the starchy portion mixed with some little finelyreduced starchy meal. This material is at once screened, to separatetherefrom the hulls, as well as the fine meal. The remaining material,composed of coarse starchy granules and germs, is then sized into gradesby means of suitable screens 0r sieves, and then, while the germs arestill soft, submitted, each grade separately, to the action of amechanical picker or germ-extractor, (such, for instance, as isdescribed in an application for a patent filed by me N 0 Vember 19,1888, Serial No. 112,085,) for picking or extracting the soft germs fromthe harder coarse starchy granules. remaining coarse starchy granulesare reduced by grinding to cornmeal, which may be mixed with the finemeal resulting from the first reduction of the steamed corn.

I do not claim herein the art of extracting germs from ground. cerealsdescribed and claimed in the aforesaid application, nor the art ofmaking grits described and claimed in another application filed by meNovember 1-7, 1883, Serial N 0. 112,082.

I claim as my invention- The improvement of the art of making germlesscornmeal, which consists of the following steps, substantially as beforeset forth, namely: first, steaming the corn just enough to soften andtoughen the hulls and germs; second, coarsely grinding orbreaking thesteamed cornand separating the hulls and fine meal from the ground orbroken material; third, picking the germs from the coarse starchyparticles, and, fourth, reducing the remaining coarse starchy particlesto meal.

Finally those In testimony whereof IaffiX my signature in presence oftwo witnesses.

JOSEPH FRANKLIN GENT.

W'itnesses E. T. WVALKER, W. M. HANNAY.

